EcoPlanet Bamboo Signs Agreement for Purchase of its African Bamboo

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US based EcoPlanet Bamboo Group, global owner of some of the world’s largest commercial bamboo plantations, has recently entered into a purchase agreement for 100% of future harvested bamboo from its 1,200 acre bamboo plantation in South Africa.

“What works in a lab or within tightly controlled trials can be as different as night and day to what is required for the same plants to thrive at a large commercial scale, and takes millions of dollars to be successful"

Barrington, IL (PRWEB)May 14, 2013

US based EcoPlanet Bamboo Group, global owner of some of the world’s largest commercial bamboo plantations, has recently entered into a purchase agreement for 100% of future harvested bamboo from its 1,200 acre bamboo plantation in South Africa. Although EcoPlanet Bamboo Southern Africa only represents a small portion of the Company’s approximate 10,000 acre bamboo plantation holdings, this recent development has proved that the Company’s expansion from Central America into the growing African market was a positive move.

The South Africa expansion also allowed EcoPlanet Bamboo to be the first bamboo company to prove it could successfully develop commercial bamboo plantations using plantlets propagated from tissue culture. With the exception of a small 25 acre bamboo test plot being developed by Kimberly-Clark and Provitro Biosciences (formerly Booshoot), a Washington based ornamental plant nursery who propagate and sell plantlets of Moso – an invasive species indigenous to China – to Walmart and Home -Depot, the use of tissue culture plantlets for commercial uses has proved challenging. Although the development of tissue culture bamboo has been in existence for decades, the challenge has been to take these plantlets through the transition stage and into full developmental growth and maturity within the field. For this reason tissue culture labs in Europe, Asia and the US have predominantly focused on selling potted bamboo into the retail market.

“What works in a lab or within tightly controlled trials can be as different as night and day to what is required for the same plants to thrive at a large commercial scale, and takes millions of dollars to be successful”, says Troy Wiseman CEO of EcoPlanet Bamboo Group. Our vision and goal has always been to be a timber substitute company that can produce bamboo in a mass way that still focuses on the sustainability and immense positive benefits that this plant can bring. Timber manufactures globally require a source of fiber, and without a viable alternative unsustainable deforestation and use of our forest resources will continue.

Having cracked the code for growing bamboo at a commercial plantation level from both seed and plants propagated from tissue culture, EcoPlanet Bamboo is now in a position to provide the option for such an alternative fiber.